Bill For Closed Meetings Likely

Senate Probably Will Echo House Vote

RICHMOND — The House of Delegates narrowly passed a measure Monday that would let the General Assembly decide which of their meetings would be open to the public.

The bill, which has drawn criticism from open government advocates and media representatives, passed the House by a 52-48 margin, and odds are the bill will pass the Senate too, according to one of the legislature's staunchest supporters of the Freedom of Information Act.

"I don't believe that the Virginia General Assembly is a real beacon for open government," said Sen. R. Edward Houck, D-Spotsylvania. "If I was a betting guy, I'd bet something like this was going to happen, but I'm going to work like the devil to slow it down."

The bill, proposed by House Majority Leader H. Morgan Griffith, R-Salem, would let a GOP-dominated panel of senior lawmakers -- the Joint Rules Committee -- set the regulations on open meetings for the entire legislature, political caucuses, committees and smaller groups of legislators.

Houck -- chairman of the state's Freedom of Information Advisory Council and the Senate General Laws Committee's FOIA subcommittee -- said he hadn't gauged opinion in the Senate but hopes the bill will get more scrutiny.

"We should not put anything on the books until we study it properly," Houck said. He favors sending the bill to the FOIA council for a year of research, "and then maybe putting it to the Joint Rules Committee is the best approach after all."

Gov. Mark R. Warner supports open government as a general rule, according to his press secretary Ellen Qualls, but she said he would reserve judgment on the measure until it passed out of the Senate.

During extended debate on Monday, opponents highlighted the implications of the bill.

"We're trying to fix a problem that doesn't exist," said House Minority Leader Franklin P. Hall, D-Richmond. "If my interpretation of this statute is correct, we could even close this chamber, not only to all non-members, but to the press, to anyone."

Griffith argued that gray areas appeared after Attorney General Jerry W. Kilgore said last month that caucuses must be open to the public if members discuss how they plan to vote on specific bills.

"This has absolutely nothing to do with open government," he said. "Every meeting that is currently open to the public will remain open to the public."

Other Republicans voiced concerns about the legislature's independence.

"The legislature has a sorry history of opening up, and this sends all the wrong signals," said Forrest M. "Frosty" Landon, executive director of the Virginia Coalition for Open Government. "In the past 10 to 20 years, there has been significant improvement, but this causes so much damage to that record -- if only because of the possibility for abuse."

Landon said he hopes the Senate will kill the bill, send it to the advisory council or make specific exemptions to the FOI law instead of completely scraping it.

Houck said the bill wouldn't be tough to sell to the Senate.

"It is so much easier to govern behind closed doors," he said. "Lawmakers have a very difficult time exposing themselves to the public."

Kimball Payne can be reached at (757) 897-6994 or by e-mail at kpayne@dailypress.com